OWAIS HUSAIN
Born in 1967 in Mumbai.
Owais Husain received his Bachelors in Art from the Sir J.J. School of Art in 1990.
He went on to work at the Kanoria Centre for Visual Arts, Ahmedabad between 1991 and 1992.
He has held solo shows and participated in the group show 'Four Young Contemporary Cymroza Art Gallery' Mumbai and Sakshi Gallery, Bangalore in 1993. Since then he has participated in a number of group exhibitions at galleries around Mumbai, and at the National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi. Owais has also had an interest in films and has directed two successful films "Gaja Gamini" and "Meenaxi" in collaboration with his wife Reima Husain.
Husain's figurative work over time is characterized by intense figures surrounded by space – almost a situation. These works are marked by strong areas of vibrant color and assured brush strokes, dividing the canvas in interesting ways. There is a quality of narration in his work where the viewer tries to imagine the situation of the figures. His work "dwells on transfixed moments between people and situations".
It is initially surprising then, when some of his work bears the imprint (though only that) of the brilliant and great German painter, Max Beckmann, whose own works were tinged much more often with melancholy. Later, one is reminded of Beckmann's intensity and Owais's own proclamation of admiration for him.
In a recent exhibition catalog, Owais Hussain writes, "The largest struggle we are witnessing today is not between conflicting moral beliefs, between the legal system and individual freedom, between nature and human technology; it is between our inner and outer lives, and our bodies are the area where this belief is being played out. It is the old philosophical 'mind-body' problem coming to a crescendo as an ecological drama where the outcome rests not only upon our realization that the natural physical environment is one and the same as our bodies, but that nature itself is a form of mind".
Owais Husain lives and works in Mumbai.